The News of the World's managing editor Bill Akass confirmed yesterday what had been an open secret: his paper turned down the Lord Triesman story.

It was offered the Triesman tale of allegations about World Cup bribery before the Mail on Sunday, which did decide to publish.

Akass told Radio 4's The Media Show: "We decided not to run it. We were not satisfied that it was justified and we felt the information was thin." He continued:

It didn't meet the tests which we set ourselves for justification…

Is it in the public interest? Are we operating within the law? Are we operating within the PCC code, which says that use of subterfuge can only be used in the public interest when the material cannot be obtained by any other means?... Do we have credible information to suggest that this person is already engaged in these activities?

That came after Akass had been questioned by the presenter, Steve Hewlett, about a judge's criticism of the News of the World when sentencing Edward Terry, father England footballer John Terry, on drug-dealing charges.

In giving Terry a lenient sentence, the judge said: "It is a very, very clear case of entrapment solely to create a newspaper story." (For a fuller version, see my posting here. And for the NoW's initial response, see here).

Given that the NoW rarely goes public to explain its actions, the Akass interview deserves being carried as fully as possible.

To begin, Akass pointed out that there was a public interest "in exposing a drug dealer", and that both the Crown Prosecution Service and the police must have agreed because Terry was prosecuted.

"Terry himself pleaded guilty," said Akass. "We make no apology for exposing a drug dealer."

Akass stamped on the suggestion that it might have been a fishing expedition: "We acted on information received. In this case we received information from different sources early on which indicated he was engaged in this sort of activity.

"In fact, we didn't investigate the first tip because we felt it was very thin. [It was] only when we had subsequent corroborating information that we decided to go ahead. This was not a fishing expedition, we simply wouldn't want to do that and don't have the resources to do that."

The NoW's reporter Dan Sanderson was said in court to have befriended Terry in an Essex bar over a period of six weeks, though Akass said it might have been longer than that.

Asked by Hewlett whether the paper had suggested Terry obtain drugs, Akass said: "We were very diligent in ensuring that we didn't at any stage instigate the drug dealing --"

Hewlett interrupted: "Your reporter, according to the court report, asked him to supply drugs."

Akass replied: "Well, we dispute that and the transcripts will show that, in fact, at no point did we ask him for drugs. What happened was, in fact, that he volunteered to get the drugs and he sourced the drugs.

"We were very careful about that for legal reasons and careful to ensure that we didn't entice him to do so.

"Over the period [of six weeks] We were very careful and meticulous not to entrap him. We used subterfuge to get to know him and then during the course of the investigation he volunteered to supply drugs... We waited for that situation to occur."

So, asked Hewlett, does the paper not take the judge's comments seriously?

Akass said: "The judge has listened to his defence lawyer's mitigation rather than the details of our transcripts. This is a case of shooting the messenger."